But the fun folks with the Bowie Baysox still manage to come up with events that'll get some giggles. Tonight, ripped straight from the headlines, the team is hosting an "Amanda Bynes Retirement Party" at Bowie Stadium.

Part of the party announcement:

Bynes, 24, shocked the world when she announced her retirement from acting via Twitter on Saturday, June 19.  The young star had excelled on TV in Nickelodeon's "All That" and her own sketch comedy show, "The Amanda Show." She was also featured in family-friendly movies "Big Fat Liar," "She's The Man," "What a Girl Wants" and "Hairspray."

Baysox Director of Promotions Lauren Phillips was shocked by the announcement.  "I can not believe she's retiring at 24," Phillips said.  "She had such a long and incredible career in front of her.  I've been a huge fan for years, there will be no replacing Amanda Bynes in pop culture."

The team promises that attendees will get free cake and can sign a retirement card to the now-former actress, can make Amanda Bynes tribute t-shirts, take part in a Bynes look-alike contest, and view career retrospective video clips. If there's a trivia contest, the first question could be: Can somebody please explain Amanda Bynes fame?

The guest of honor has been invited, but, alas, the Baysox as of yet "have not received a response" from Bynes.

And, for those who care: There's also a baseball game between the Baysox, a AA affiliate of the O's, and the Erie SeaWolves. First pitch is at 7:05 p.m. For more info, go to www.baysox.com or call  (301) 464-4865.

Michael Vick was "conditionally reinstated" by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell yesterday. So the Vick-to-Redskins barkers got louder.

I know from dumbass arguments, and here's one of the dumbassiest on why Vick could fit in here as training camp opens this week:  Signing the free agent, says the Sporting News, "would give Vick an opportunity to play close to his home state of Virginia." Good point! The Skins play closest to where Vick did his best animal slaughtering, too!

Dan Snyder wouldn't. Would he?

I mean, sure, he tried hiring Pepper Rodgers, traded for Brandon Lloyd, and founded a chain of boutique kiddie barber shops for a theme park chain just before it went bankrupt.

But, he wouldn't.

Would he?

Gosh, I hope so!

(After the Jump: Snyder makes a good deal? Billick makes case for not signing Vick without mentioning Vick? Nats have more grand slams than your local Denny's? Divas finish on top after all? No Tasering for Scott Van Pelt giveaway?)

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Speaking of bad bets: We now have perhaps the first proof that Snyder can drive a hard bargain. The Redskins agreement with Virginia lottery officials to sell those ridiculous $20 scratch tickets a couple months back will net the team a reported $4.25 million. Now a publication called New Orleans City Business is reporting that the New Orleans Saints made a similar scratch ticket marketing deal with the Louisiana lottery, but the team will only be paid $155,000. If these figures are accurate, that means the Saints sold their soul for 1/27 as much as the Skins.

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This quickie Q&A in the Wall Street Journal with Brian Billick has some great bits. Among them, Billick discusses the hazards of the draft, but without ever mentioning Vick explains why the newly reinstated QB could be blackballed by the NFL this season without any collusion taking place:

WSJ: The character issue seems paramount. But do fans care about character if the other team is faster, bigger, stronger?

Mr. Billick: I've long said character is an economic issue in the NFL, not one of morals or ethics.

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DC Divas Poll Update: The poll taketh, the poll giveth back.

The Divas got digitally and royally screwed in the middle of the IWFL playoffs when the computer rating service used by the league to determine seeding knocked them off the top spot for no obvious reason, thereby costing the team home field advantage for the game against the Boston Militia for Eastern Conference championship.

Yesterday, after the Divas lost in the IWFL's Sup-Her Bowl last weekend to the Kansas City Tribe, that same rating service, the Massey Ratings, has given DC the #1 ranking in its season ending poll.

Kansas City, the real champs, get sloppy seconds. (BTW: The Chiefs' Mindy White is the team's owner, general manager, and LINEBACKER! In other words, she's Dan Snyder, Vinny Cerrato, and London Fletcher all in one!)

This, friends, is exactly why a playoff system would never work in college football. Every year, it'll be the same whine about the computers costing this school or that a slot in the championship tournament.

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Thunderation Update: Nats get two grand slams from the same guy and win big.

Cheap Seats Daily has said for years that the Nats' biggest problem early in the season was the lack of a fight song. So, on July 21, with the team in a 6-game losing streak overall and new manager Jim Riggleman winless in five games, we unilaterally declared "Thunderation" to be the unofficial official fight song of your Washington Nationals.

Since that declaration, the Nats have gone 5-1 in games that went the full 9 innings. The Nats are now on a three-game winning streak in which they've outscored the opposition 30-9.

As both my readers know, Riggleman's old high school team, the Rockets of Richard Montgomery HS in Rockville, went at least 22 years without a losing season while singing "Thunderation."

It's not the manager, it's the song!

So SING!:

Thunder, Thunder, Thunderation
We’re the Rockets Delegation
When we fight with determination
We create a soul sensation!

A four-game winning streak would totally create a soul sensation.

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Bobblehead Update: Fascism pays off!

Bowie Baysox spokesman Tom Sedlacek reports that Sunday's Scott Van Pelt Bobblehead Night, complete with rules limiting the movement and civil liberties of fans, came off "really really well" — meaning without having to Taser or otherwise restrain any of the bobblehead-hoarding freaks who have ruined previous promotions.

Sedlacek says demand for a free doll and an autograph from the locally reared ESPN host was "huge."

I told Sedlacek that hed opened my eyes to giveaway greediness, and that I got to see it up close at the Nats game on Saturday for grocery bag giveaway night. Creeps were walking around the stadium into the wee hours of the rain-delayed game looking for any Harris Teeter reusable bag (most of which still had the $1.99 price tag on them) that wasn't nailed down.

He's seen it all before.

"We could hand out defective can openers and people would hoard them," Sedlacek says.

There are already five Van Pelt dolls from the Bowie giveaway for sale on eBay. One of the creeps apparently overrode the one-doll-per-fan rule put in place, and is now vending two Van Pelts for $110 plus postage.

The creep's nom de gouge is nyyankeesfan.13722. Figures! What a shocker! The d-bag is a Yankees fan!*

*I've never actually found Yankees fans to be more objectionable than those of our local teams, but faux outrage is fun!

Sally Jenkins rides with Lance Armstrong again this morning. Jenkins, who has written several books with Armstrong, references the druggie rumors more here than in the scads of her previous columns on the most accused drug cheat in the history of sport.

"It's what [Armstrong's] whole comeback is all about really," writes Jenkins, "coming face to face with things, especially the doubters. 'Am I doping now?' his body language seems to say."

And the world, in all sorts of languages, seems to be answering: "Hell, yes, you're doping!" That March incident, where Armstrong stalled French drug testers who'd surprised him as he trained for the Tour de France and asked for urine samples, crushed the odds that the comeback would change anybody's mind. By now Armstrong has the same chance of clearing his name as Michael Jackson.

Dirty pee or not, Armstrong's amazing, ain't he? To paraprahase the old lady in the diner in "Sleepless in Seattle" "When Harry Met Sally": I'll have what he's having.

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Joel Hanrahan got his first win as a National yesterday, a week after he joined the Pittsburgh Pirates.

AFTER THE JUMP: Chico Harlan lights up the Nats? The Hogettes aren't dead, just broke? Do the Baysox fear the ACLU after MattWietersCollectibleFigurineNightGate™?

This oddball occurrence came as the Nats won a game in Houston that began on May 5 at Nationals Park, but was suspended in the bottom of the 11th inning because of rain. The final score: 11-10.

Since the Astros weren't scheduled to visit DC again this season, the suspended game was completed on Houston's home field, with the Nats technically the home team. Hanrahan was the Nats pitcher of record when the game left off on May 5, and since Washington scored the winning run yesterday without having to take the field again, he was still the pitcher of record when the game ended and gets credit for the victory.

Got it? Me neither.

What I do get, however: Hanrahan clearly has no practice winning. He told reporters in Pittsburgh that he was glad to get the win and "to see the Nationals get another victory in the win column."

Alas, the Nationals are still first in the majors in victories in the loss column — in no small part because of Hanrahan's horrificness when he wore the uniform.

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Awesome Trivia from the early game: The Nats are the first team to have a walk-off win as visitors since 1975, when the Yankees beat the Twins in a game that started in New York and ended  in Minneapolis.

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Normalcy returned in the regularly scheduled nightcap in Houston, as the Nats were routed, 9-4. Chico Harlan's game story in the Washington Post was beautiful and brutal. Harlan reiterated Christian Guzman's and Adam Dunn's shortcomings with a glove (Dunn has "all the outfield range of an oak tree") and got Manny Acta to sound very defensive when defending his defense. "It is what it is," Acta told Harlan. "I don't know why you keep bringing that up."

Keep bringing it up, Chico!

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As reported in this very space every hour on the hour, the Bowie Baysox have decided not to restrict civil liberties during Scott Van Pelt Bobblehead Night on July 26. To recap, again: Team management had been burned by bobblehead hoarders during Lindsay Czarniak and Pat Sajak giveaways, so they decided to go all Mussolini on their own patrons when it came time for Matt Wieters Collectible Figurine Night a few weeks ago. Folks who showed up for the Wieters event were told that they could have one figuring no matter how many tickets they purchased, and that to get that one figurine they had to come into the stadium and abide by a "No exit!" policy until all the faux Wieters were given away.

As asserted every hour on the hour, Cheap Seats Daily is totally against restrictions of civil liberties — except those that punish bobblehead hoarders. We love those! So there was considerable angst in this space when Bowie management revoked the No Exit! edict for Scott Van Pelt Bobblehead night, thereby opening the door for the grown up weirdos to load up their plastic bags with mini-Van Pelts and deprive little kids of canoodling with the hairless and club-wielding and downright creepy looking dolls fashioned after the ESPN host.

But, disappointed as we are by Bowie's backtracking, recent legal actions involving the Yankees explain the decision. Simply, the Baysox don't want the American Civil Liberties Union on their ass. I think those fears are unfounded.

Sure, the ACLU has in the past supported NAMBLA and Ollie North — but could the group in good conscious take up for....BOBBLEHEAD HOARDERS?

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The Hogettes (yes, apparently the guys are still at it) are panhandling for sponsors. Why don't they do another Ford commercial?

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As predicted in this space, the beat wasn't big enough for the Skins' GM/racquetball partner/DJ and the Post's writer/blogger/agitator.

La Canfora left the paper to work the NFL Network.

The entertaining putzes over at Dan Snyder's message board, Extremeskins.com, are taking credit for driving La Canfora away.

And while the Skins obsessives don't trust anybody coming from Baltimore, they liked one thing about the Maese move.

As Extremeskins poster RedskinsVictoryorDeath put it: "As least they didn't hire anyone from the City Paper..."

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Here's how far out of football Mike "Biggest Loser" Williams—an offensive lineman and the largest of the Redskins' Five Guys Named Williams by at least a Williams—was before Cerrato pried him away from the buffet: The guy can't even be used by gamers on Madden '09!

This dude's peeved about not being able to put Biggest Loser on his digital roster, and uses the situation to demand changes from EA Sports, which produces the game.

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Remember, tchotchke freaks: Tonight's Matt Wieters Collectible Figurine Night at the Bowie Baysox game!

Management, saying they've been burned by hoarders at past giveaways, have put new rules in place guaranteed to take all the fun and civil rights out of the event.

From the Baysox website:

"There will be a limit of one figurine per person and there will be a 'No Exit and Re-Entry' policy in effect from 6:00 – 7:00 pm or until all giveaways have been distributed. Fans will not be able to exit the stadium during this time period."

Here's hoping a brawl breaks out between Baysox security and some clown trying to get out of the stadium yelling, "I bought THREE tickets! I want THREE Matt Wieters Collectible Figurines! HELP!"

I smell a scandal! GateGate?

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Where God and gridiron intersect: The Newsboys, Mark Brunell's partners in Christian Rock via Nashville's InPop Records, are scheduled to play shows at Dan Snyder's Six Flags parks this year. If there is a this year for Dan Snyder's Six Flags.

InPop's been the focus of complaints from cult-watcher groups, who claim the record label is a mouthpiece for EveryNation churches, which has in the past been caught using recruiting methods shadier than anything John Calipari ever tried.

But before you bash Theme Park Rock, remember: The Jonas Brothers played Six Flags when they were nothing. And Bob Dylan played Kings Dominion when he was Bob Dylan!

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The latest issue of Sports Illustrated tells the tale of Jeff Komlo, the former DeMatha and Detroit Lions QB turned drugged-up, domestic-abuser fugitive.

Komlo was killed recently in a car accident in Greece, where he was living on the lam and completely out of touch with friends and family. But he fell apart years before his death.

The story doesn't answer why Komlo went wrong, but just reading how wrong he went is fascinating.

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Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com